


Hey Mom, It's Mia

by only_freakin_donuts



Series: Wish You Were Here [3]
Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: December 5th verse, Epistolary, F/F, Rose is dead, but y'all knew that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21566260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_freakin_donuts/pseuds/only_freakin_donuts
Summary: Every year on her birthday, Mia has received a letter from her "Wose Mommy". For her eighteenth birthday, she decides to write one back.
Relationships: Luisa Alver/Rose Solano, Rose and Daughter
Series: Wish You Were Here [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1061099
Comments: 11
Kudos: 17





	Hey Mom, It's Mia

**Author's Note:**

> I have no clue if there's interest for this, whoops. Hi to anyone who read December 5th, 5:55! The day is soon approaching. This was the magic zone between Mia being born and Rose dying where they were a family. *sighs* Anyways, Cate and I initially planned for a sequel to Dec. 5th that would have a chapter on each of Mia's birthdays until she turned 18, of her receiving letters that Rose wrote for her before she died. We never finished that sequel, but this goes with that. This time, Mia decides to write one back. 
> 
> Enjoy, or something!

“Hey mom, it’s Mia.

I’m writing this letter in a cafe before I start school. I’ve got a first period spare. I only have a few more months of senior year left before everything’s going to change, I’ve got college applications weighing down my backpack right now. None of them are out of state. That sounds… sad, in a way, but I don’t find it sad. I’m okay to stay here, I like it here. I like it being just me and Mama. I’m gonna go into sciences like she did, I’ve been thinking about nursing lately, or maybe occupational therapy. I’m gonna make you both so proud of me. And that’s how I’m going to do it.

I’m on my school’s organizing committee for our cancer fundraiser this year. It’s a pretty big deal actually; in a matter of one long night we bring in over 80 thousand dollars for the American Cancer Society. And it’s a fun night, even when it gets sad. Even when it gets to the part of the night when I have to talk about you, and talk about Mama. 

Oh, yeah, I guess you don’t know. Or maybe you do, I don’t know, maybe you know everything. 

Mama got diagnosed with breast cancer as a 50th birthday present. And before you get your panties all up in a twist, it wasn’t _nearly_ as bad as it could have been, we’re very grateful for that. She had a double mastectomy two weeks before I turned 12; we read your letter in her bed while she was recovering, and then we read the whole Harry Potter series together. We did that almost everyday after her radiation treatments too, every day for five weeks, her last radiation treatment was on Christmas Eve. We bonded a lot around that time, it wasn’t all bad. So yeah, every year at our fundraiser, I get to be that girl who says _both_ her moms got cancer. 

I’ve only ever had one person tell me it was because God hates lesbians. 

By the way, I’m pansexual. And I’m proud. I actually really, _really_ am. Coming out for me wasn’t difficult and it wasn’t even necessarily a big deal, it was just me living my truth. Why would I want to live as anything other than my authentic self, right? I was raised surrounded by a village of people who never did anything less than support me and tell me I could be anything I wanted, and they were all living their truth in one way or another. (Even Uncle Raf, despite us not always being on the same page about things, he’s being honest to how he feels. He may _honestly_ be being an ass, but it’s his truth, I guess.)

(I don’t like how he disrespects you. You aren’t here to defend yourself, so someone’s gotta do it for you and I’m happy to be that person. Mama defends you too, always.)

In case you haven’t been able to tell already; I have this image of you in my mind. Not just physically, cause that’s just based off pictures– the ones before you were sick, of course– but, just… You exist, in my mind. You don’t exist as a dead woman, you exist as my mom. My long-lost, out-there-somewhere mom. And that sounds so _stupid_ to say out loud, but…. it’s my truth. When I make decisions, when I do things that I’m proud of, and things that I’m not, I ask myself how you would react. You don’t always react the way I want you to, but if anything about this is accurate I guess it’s that. And I don’t want to speak for Mama, but I think she does it too. I think it might make her feel less alone– less like the single mother at birthday parties and cheer competitions and school plays, and… 

If you’re wondering, she tried dating, a few times. It never really worked. There were some really nice women, I liked all of them, they just weren’t…. they weren’t you, Mom. I guess I learned my tendency to put you on a little bit of a pedestal from her. 

I hope you would like the person that I’ve become. I want to make you proud, I want to make you and Mama so proud of me. Part of me knows, though, that I could never do anything to make Mama be truly disappointed in me. But I don’t have that same validation from you, and I know that I’ll never be able to get it. I shouldn’t require it but it’s hard not to. Mama tells me all the time that you would love me unconditionally the way she does and I want to believe her, I just… I’m still scared, if I’m honest. Scared of not being what you wanted, scared of not living up to my full potential or something. I don’t know, I’m not sure. I’m just… wish you were here.

I’d make us some comfort food and we’d just sit and talk for hours. Did Mama ever make _asopao de pollo_ for you guys? We make it with one of her grandma’s recipes. I’d realize how many things we actually have in common, which is funny. And how Mama’s right, sometimes I do make faces that are all you, as if you taught me them. Maybe some deep part of my brain remembers you making those faces from the first few weeks of my life. I’d probably realize how many things I’ve gotten wrong about you, how you aren’t the same person you are when you just exist in my mind. I’d tell you about school, and about the tv shows I watch, and the causes I believe in, and we’d talk cooking and politics and cheerleading and makeup and YouTube. I could talk for hours, as long as you’d let me. And I’d listen for hours too, because there’s so many things I want to ask you, so many things about you that I want to know. 

I know this letter was scattered and crazy and one big info-dump about the past eighteen years. I would apologize but… I’m not sorry. And I know it’s basically a letter from a stranger. I’m a stranger to you. I don’t want to be, so this is my introduction. My name is Mia, I’m your daughter. Tomorrow will be the eighteenth anniversary of the day Mama drove herself to the hospital and got rushed into an emergency c-section. In three weeks it’ll be the eighteenth anniversary of the last time we saw each other. 

Lastly, I want to say thank you. Thank you for the letters for the past eighteen years; you spent some of your last bit of time and energy on this project for me and the magnitude of that is not lost on me. It isn’t nothing, I don’t see it as such. Thank you for being my mom.

Love you always, my Wose Mommy.  
Love, your ladybug.”

**Author's Note:**

> y'all aren't allowed to come after me about giving Luisa breast cancer for her 50th birthday even though I deserve it, I definitely deserve it.


End file.
